Abundance. By Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson. Audiobook

Emma Smith

Their narrative is a familiar one: following a postwar economic boom, progressive thinkers grew wary of growth itself. To shield vulnerable communities and the natural world from the bulldozer of unchecked development, liberals constructed an intricate web of rules. These regulations aimed to curb corporate power and even restrain government overreach. But now, the argument goes, these very constraints have become counterproductive. While the U.S. system remains tangled in "red tape," China showcases the staggering potential of a nation less fetentiously bound. President Biden's investments in clean energy, semiconductors, and infrastructure were a start, concede Klein and Thompson, but they remain hamstrung by bureaucratic inertia and a lack of bold vision. The result? A liberalism that, in the name of its own values, now enforces scarcity, stifles innovation, and obstructs the very progress it once championed.

As its rhetorical foil, the book opens with a utopian sketch of America in 2050 - a world where government has rediscovered the art of building, or at least gotten out of the way so others can. In this vision, drones deliver longevity pills to your door, and artificial intelligence has shortened the workweek for most. Gazing back from this imagined prosperity, an unnamed narrator voices a collective regret:

For years, we accepted homelessness and poverty, untreated disease and declining life expectancy. For years, we knew what we needed to build to alleviate the scarcities so many faced and create the opportunities so many wanted - and we simply didn't build it. For years, we failed to invent and implement the technology that would make the world cleaner, healthier, and richer. For years, we constrained our own ability to solve the most important problems.

From this premise, Klein and Thompson mount their defense of what they term "a simple idea: to have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of what we need." Their call is for a "liberalism that builds."

It's a slogan nearly impossible to oppose on its face. Who, after all, would argue for a liberalism that doesn't build? But herein lies the book's central sleight of hand. This rhetoric, pervasive throughout Abundance, is not merely "simple." It often flirts with platitude, masking profound political and moral choices beneath a gloss of uncontestable logic. Its language - urging us to move faster, break things, and stop worrying - borrows directly from the playbook of Silicon Valley disruptors and corporate giants. The authors correctly note that "politics is not just about the problems we have. It's about the problems we see." Yet, Abundance itself is afflicted by a critical blindness. Its vision is narrowly focused on the horizon, willfully overlooking the crucial questions of who builds, for whom, and at what cost.[...]